In February 2005, Donald Trump blazed into Tampa with his new bride on his arm to announce the sales kickoff of Trump Tower Tampa. It's nearly three years later, and the 52-story condo tower remains more a fixture in the courts than on the building site at 111 S Ashley Drive.
Not only did developer SimDag LLC miss a self-imposed December deadline to conclude financing for the project but on Wednesday, SimDag answered a lawsuit Trump filed in May by countersuing the New York tycoon. SimDag alleges that Trump, by going public with the lawsuit in May, breached a confidentiality agreement.
Trump revealed that he was to receive 50 percent of the profits on the sale of the $300-million tower's 190 condos. In return, SimDag was supposed to affix the Trump brand to a luxury high-rise, where penthouse units top out at $6-million.
"The license agreement provides ... that the parties will not, under any circumstances, disclose the existence of the licensing agreement or its terms," the SimDag countersuit reads, in part.
The Trump Organization in New York declined to comment about the project beyond confirming that negotiations were continuing. Trump has been trying to recover more than $1-million in unpaid licensing fees. SimDag's attorney didn't return a call from the Times. The tower remains little more than a vacant lot on the Hillsborough River.
To provide last-ditch financing for the tower, SimDag recruited a New York hedge fund and sketched out a resurrection plan at a meeting with condo buyers on Oct. 24. SimDag pushed back the grand opening from December 2008 to December 2010 and asked buyers to re-up their soon-to-expire contracts another two years.
Source: spTimes.com